This issue first presented itself in Windows 8.1 with the 15.7 driver update, it is present in all versions after 15.7.

This issue is not present in ANY previous version of CCC, downgrading to 15.6 resolves the issue but this is not a solution.

It occurs when the GPU switches from 3D clocks to 2D clocks. Playing games in Borderless Fullscreen trigger the issue a lot due to clocks switching back and forth.

Watching hardware accelerated video will also trigger the issue, doing nothing at all will trigger the issue eventually.

It only occurs when 2 or more 1440p/1600p monitors are connected, any connection (DVI,DP,HDMI)

It only occurs on 290s and 390s

It does not occur in any version before 15.7, 15.6 being the last functioning revision. Something changed between 15.6 and 15.7 ,causing this aggravating issue.

The issue temporarily goes away when the clocks switch to 3D mode, when you reset the graphics driver, when enable/disable GPU Upscaling or VSR. Turning the monitors off and then on also resolves the issue temporarily.

Others on Reddit have confirmed that it is indeed the Memory Idle clocks being TOO LOW for multiple monitors in 15.7(15.7.1). This causes extreme display flickering across all monitors when the GPU is in 2D mode. The only fix so far is to manually overclock the 2D memory idle clock in GPU Tweak or Afterburner. I have not tested this yet as I am at work.

When you are using your card for a 3D game and running a 2D application at the same time...there can be a conflict. I have a R9 290 and do not have this issue..why? I right click on a flash program and uncheck 'hardware acceleration'..which has been the fix for this for years. Others disable hardware acceleration through their browser ..in IE tools > internet options . advanced. Firefox and chrome have the same feature. It's there for a reason.

It's a fresh install of Windows 10, no games have been played yet. The second video where it is only CCC open, nothing else, doesn't corrupt until the window is moved. This also only occurs when using more than 1 monitor.

Ok...well it sounds like report time...everybody needs to send a 'Issue report" describing this issue. The more reports the better chance for a fix in the next beta.

Remember, don't be expecting personal responses from the Technical dept...what they need to know is if this is happening to anyone else but you. If so, why? Is this problem only happening with Intel processors/Windows xp only/OS/which graphics card, etc.

Not running Eyefinity. Switching CrossFireX on or off seems to resolve the issue for anywhere between 30 minutes to a few hours. It seems like certain kinds of video or locking/unlocking Windows triggers the issue, but not every time.

Same issue here, using 3x Dell U3014. I have created a similar thread on the support forums (R9 290 multi monitor image corruption with Catalyst 15.8 beta and 15.7.1 ). Please check and, if possible, reinforce this post with your experience regarding this bug. We need to get AMD's attention to this issue, since 15.8 beta still does not provide a fix for this matter.

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For those who are trying to roll back to 15.6 (last released driver prior to this bug) under Windows 10, recall that Windows update now automatically update drivers, therefore, after installing 15.6 Windows might reinstall the newest stable version (15.7.1), bringing back the issue. To solve this, try using the Display Driver Uninstaller software (Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 15.4.1.1 ) with the option to block Windows auto driver updates. Alternatively, there are some methods (Google them) to prevent Windows 10 from downloading drivers using only natively built tools.

I've worked around the issue by going into the AMD Catalyst Control Center -> My Digital Flat Panel -> Properties. Then I toggle the "Enable virtual super resolution", i.e. if it was on, I turn it off and if it was off I turn it on. This does what looks to be reset of something as the output on my screen goes blank for a second or so and comes back - but the flickering is no longer there. A few hours later it comes back, I pull up the AMD CCC and I toggle the setting again. If you use "virtual super resolution", then just turn it off and turn it back on.

I had been running two 1920 x 1080 screens on my single R9-290 and never had this issue. Today I replaced my screens with two 2560 x 1440 screens, now I get this after about 5 minutes. The best thing I have found so far is to leave a high res youtube video running in a minimized window just to force the GPU to clock up. Works instantly. As soon as the video stops, then instant flicker.

After playing with this a bit more I have found that simply playing a high res local video in a minimized window stabilizes this issue. The interesting part is that the GPU clock is running 300 - 305 MHz doing this, but the memory clock has gone from 150 to 1250 MHz. using a youtube video to provide a load also ran up the GPU clock. so it appears the real culprit is the memory clock running too slow.

I use this workstation for business so I'll probably just replace the video card with a different make. It's too bad because our whole engineering dept is using these cards and we are now changing out the monitors. A fix for this would save a bunch of cards from the trash.

I have noticed it is only with resolutions higher than 1080p as well and like you have performed the same troubleshooting steps to identify the issue. I have been running my second monitor off my Haswell iGPU which has alleviated the issue entirely until this is finally acknowledged and fixed by AMD. Another solution is to find an installer for 15.6, you can use the Win8.1 version for Windows10

After spending an entire day trying to figure out why low load caused this issue. I decided to try re=wiring some stuff. I had one monitor connected to the HDMI port and one to the Display Port. I re-wired it leaving the one in the Display port, but then daisy chaining from the MST output on that monitor over to the second screen. It hasn't flickered since. The driver shows the display port output as 7.42 Gbps and 35% load on each screen. Total load 70%. Total Bandwidth 21.26 Gbps.

Maybe it has something to do with using the mixed connection. With my old 1080p screens I had one in HDMI and one in a DVI port and it worked fine. Or, perhaps the HDMI cable just didn't handle the extra bandwidth going from 1080 to 1440. But so long as I kept something running to put load on it there was never a flicker, so I do not think it was a bandwidth issue.

At this point it has been stable for 8 hours, so something in that port change made a difference.

I was eagerly waiting for this release, but, as our problem is not listed neither under the "Fixed Issues" nor under the "Known Issues" sections of the beta release notes, I am reticent about uninstalling 15.6 (which works fine) to install 15.9.

Driver 15.9 Beta is out and users are reporting that the problem persists. Once again (as when 15.8 was released), this bug is not even listed under the "known issues" section of the beta release notes. Please everyone, report this bug to AMD: AMD Issue Reporting Form

It seems, so far, that there is not a specific trigger cause, since it randomly starts even when the computer is showing only the desktop. Some users suppose that this problem may be related to memory idle clocks being set too low for multiple monitors, which is partially confirmed by the fact that the display corruption rarely happens while gaming (except when some games, like GTA V, are paused). Other discussions on the community seem to have determined that this bug is affecting setups using Display Port mixed with other interfaces, like DVI and HDMI.

Temporarily fixes for this issue include enabling / disabling Eyefinity Display Group and VSR when the flickering starts or powering off all the monitors connected via Display Port and than back on.

I have reported this bug to AMD using the "AMD Issue Reporting Form" since Catalyst 15.7.1 was released, then again when Catalyst 15.8 beta was made available. Unfortunately, not only the problem persists, but also, it is not listed on the "known issues" section of the "beta release notes" for the newly released Catalyst 15.9 beta, which seems to indicate that AMD has not acknowledged the issue. This is very worrying, because this bug is ruining our experience with R9 Series even when performing basic tasks. It should be clear to AMD that this bug affects the root purpose of a VGA, therefore, it's fix should have a higher priority than game specific upgrades, which, unfortunately, are all that the latest AMD drivers are offering.

Reverting to Catalyst 15.6 solves the issue, however, we are left without WDDM 2.0 and DirectX 12 support, which is very undesirable.

I have provided my email to AMD. Please let me know if any further clarifications are needed.

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Additional information about my setup that might be useful:

VGAs: Sapphiretech R9 290 Tri-X OC (dual, in Crossfire)

Monitors: Three Dell U3014 (one on DVI, two daisy chained on DP, all 2560x1600) and a 1080p TV on HDMI.

- The three U3014 are always used together (either as individual displays or as a single display using eyefinity), but never together with the TV. When the TV is used, the U3014s are powered off. Whenever the three U3014 are used together (either as individual displays or combined with eyefinity), the issue happens. Using only the TV (U3014s powered off) the problem does not happen.

- Enabling/disabling eyefinity display group or VSR temporarily solves the problem (setting it to the opposite state that was set when the problem starts).

- The problem seems to be uncorrelated with Crossfire settings. It happens whether Crossfire is enabled or not.

For the people who are using displays with resolution greater than 1080p over Display Port, are you also facing DP screens going completely black for a second or so before returning, sometimes multimple times in succession?

Appart from the flickering problem, I've always had this aforementioned black screen problem, on different drivers (14.9, 14.12, 15.7, 15.7.1, 15.8, 15.9 and 15.9.1), and always thought it was related to DP cables quality (although I have tried several different cables from different makers). Today, however, I found a thread on this forum from a user facing the same issue (Display randomly going black for a second ), and began wondering if other DP users have the same issue. Could you please provide some feedback on your experience?

This isn't just DP problem I'm on HDMI and getting daily flickering, especially when watching a youtube video on chrome.

Luckily the flickering isn't showing when gaming but when browsing the web and doing other desktop require work, it is unacceptable and this should have been fix long ago but it still persist even with the latest 15.10beta drivers.

I'm not experiencing the blackness issue you describe. There seem to be several display corruption issues that sometimes get bandied together in one lump. It seems that the 3XX users have the more complete screen corruption whereas some of us 290x users just have the horizontals line flicker issue that doesn't consume the whole screen, but just a small portion.

For me, I have less of an issue using 2xDVI and 1xHDMI vs anything with the DP, but I still get weird flicker issues and I also have issues with the screen on the hdmi cable not waking up properly.

The frustrating part remains that none of these issues existed in several driver builds so there is clearly a solution on the driver side. That and the fact that this thread and others continue to wear the "Assumed Answered" label when that is simply not the case.

Just yesterday I upgraded from 2x 1920x1080 panels to 2560x1440, and instantly noticed underflow corruption issues.

I installed MSI afterburner and disabled ULPS and it seems OK so far. It seems like the ULPS might not have done the trick, currently I have applied an overclocked profile to always stay at 1000core/1250mem and it doesn't show any issues. Obviously it comes at a cost, higher core temps and louder fan.

For anyone so inclined here is a GPU-Z readout of what the card sensors are reading when this corruption is occurring. Every time the mem clock hits 1260 is when the screen corrupts, I had nothing open other than GPU-Z when I logged this. I also have a clean log on the second tab, there are no noticeable differences

On my configuration I noticed the corruption happens when I'm doing easy stuff on the Desktop, the Core clocks are usually around 300 MHz and the Memory is stuck at 150 MHz, the culprit could be the low memory clocks which don't provide enough bandwidth for Extended Desktop @ 2x1440p.

Same issue here with 15.11. I must admit, though, that now it is taking longer for the corruption to begin. On the other hand, performance on games is worse than ever with 15.11. I guess I will have to roll back to 15.6 (again).

Once again, I'll send AMD an issue report form, but, sincerely, I have lost all hope. This bug has been around since 15.7 and six driver versions were released so far without AMD even recognizing that the problem exists! I am seriously considering buying NVIDIA's GTX980Ti and selling both my R9 290.

* I have read on another thread that using an active MST hub might solve the issue. It is a minor investment compared to a new graphics card. It might be worth trying.

I remember this issue back with 7950 and basically what worked was to create a profile in CCC. Then if I remember the config file is located in Appdata, the config file contained to 2d and 3d clock MHz which I had to increase for two monitors. Hope this helps.

A new major driver release is available, the so called "Crimson Edition". AMD has promissed this driver would address several problems. I haven't had the opportunity to test it yet (and won't be able to do so until late at night), but it might be the solution to our problems.

Has anyone given the Crimson Edition Driver a chance? What's the outcome?

I am disgusted to find out that this annoying bug is still present on the new and "revolutionary" Crimson Driver. More than an year has passed, I have sent 25 driver bug reports to AMD (literally) and this issue is still not solved. Considering this bug was first introduced with driver 15.7, and knowing that AMD has the code for version 15.6, which did not have this problem, I can only assume AMD is ignoring its clients and not giving any importance whatsoever to this bug that defeats the fundamental purpose of a video card: to show stable images.

From this moment on, I am giving up on AMD. I will try using an active display port multi-stream hub to see if this equipment can somehow "fix" the signal going to the displays. This is the cheapest solution I can think of. If this fails, I will keep using Asus GPU Tweak to overclock my 2D clock settings (which solves the bug, but increases heat dissipation and power consumption) until I can sell both my R9 290 to buy an NVIDIA hardware.

I wish the best luck for those who will still wait for a solution coming from AMD. From now on I plan to stay with Intel + Nvidia for several years, until AMD either goes bankrupt for disrespecting its clients or goes through a great change.

Best regards, community, and thanks for all the help and support you have given me during this half year facing this hideous software flaw.

I made a new thread linking to this one, with an updated video, still not fixed. My current workaround is to have OBS Multiplatform running minimized with an image source, just in preview mode no encoding. OBS forces only the memory into 3D clock mode

Thank you Dedrick. This has been plaguing my setup (2X R9 290X in Crossfire) for a long time. I downloaded the OBS Multiplatform and previewed an image as you so handedly instructed and my flickering seems to have stopped, so thanks again! I wish AMD would recognize this problem because it is very frustrating!

Without starting a new thread, I want to explain something I did in the past. Like probably many of you I run 3 monitors in eyefinity and one 1080p TV on top via the HDMI port. In the past to get this to work I would have to run only my eyefinity without the TV on, then wait for the flickering issue to start. Once started I would turn on my TV and the 4th screen would kick in and effectively stop the flickering. I didn't have a choice when to turn it on but usually after 30 minutes or so the flickering would start and I would turn on the TV to fix it. If I turned the TV on before the flickering I would get the sound of a display being recognized then not over and over and none of the screens would work. Sometimes I could catch the eyefinty setup in CCC fast enough when 3 monitors appeared to engage it but it was difficult and frustrating not that the whole process isn't already.

Well today I installed Radeon Crimson and attempted to turn on 4th screen but instead the system tried to make a 4 monitor eyefinity setup. Being that each one of my monitors are 2048X1152 it made a mess of it. I had to unplug my TV as well as my Display Port adapter to get my screens working again. The streamlined interface doesn't seem to include arrange monitors (I couldn't find it) so I cannot use the 4th monitor. This process has always been a challenge but I don't think Crimson helped at all.

The agonizing thing is, once I went through the process with the old software it would end up working but I was so hoping Crimson would signal the end of this baloney. Anyway I never posted this before but I felt I at least better get this information out there as some people may not have a 4th monitor and that might have something to do with all of this. I do believe the whole display port adapter plays a big role in my issues too.

Once again thanks Dedrick and I guess I will be running only 3 monitors and the Open Broadcast Software in preview mode until a fix comes... if ever.

I recently picked up another DVI cable and used it in place of the DP cable that came with my monitor. I am only using DVI for both monitors at this point, I haven't suffered from any corruption since I made the change.

This leads me to believe it is an issue with either the DisplayPort cable or how the drivers interact with DisplayPort on the card.

I have had link failures in the past on different driver versions with this cable but never thought anything of it until I saw a PSA post on Reddit saying that the cheap DP cables that come with monitors can cause link failures and display corruption.

I am experiencing the exact same issue with a new Asus R9-380 Graphics card. I am running two Dell U2713HM monitors (2560x1440) using a DVI-D cable to one and a DisplayPort cable to the second.

I was initially using a "non-standard" DisplayPort cable - but this caused a different problem. The non-standard DP cables supply power back to the graphics card, from the Monitor. See Displayport cables must not use pin 20 (warning) - [H]ard|Forum for more info. This caused all sorts of strangeness, such as USB3 ports disappearing from Device Manger etc... Luckily no permanent damage.

I have ordered a second DVI-D cable so will check whether this also sorts out the flickering problem. The latest Crimson drivers don't fix the problem, but it seems to take longer for the flickering to re-occur.

I have changed both display cables to dual-link DVI-D and can now confirm that the Flickering problem has disappeared!!!! The flickering reappears if I connect any one of the monitors with a Displayport cable.

This seems to be the most comprehensive most I've found on this issue, which is frustratingly marked as "Assumed Answered"

I'm mostly replying to keep it alive, but also to confirm some of what's in the original post. I had no problems at all when I was using two 1920x1080 screens with HDMI and DVI. It was when I bought two new 1440p and started using the DisplayPort connector that this problem presented itself. I did not have these monitors back in the 15.6 driver days, so I can't confirm that piece, but it does appear to directly be tied to the clock speed of the graphics card in 2D mode. I can work around the issue by using Asus GPU Tweak to run my graphics card at 3D clock speeds in 2D mode, although I'm not a fan of this solution for many reasons.

I have to wonder if that's the reason AMD has been so reluctant to fix this problem. Maybe they're scared of releasing a patch that increases 2D clock speeds and they're waiting as long as possible to minimize the possibility of warranty returns should the fix cause problems. I know that seems overly paranoid, but I can't think of any other reason why this issue would be so ignored despite the clear and widespread reporting. I guess the best we can do in the meantime is continue to keep the discussion alive and make sure everybody experiencing the problem files a bug report.

I have a new Asus R9-380 card and was suffering the same flickering problem. As mentioned in a previous post, I was able to solve it by connecting both of my 1440p monitors using DVI-D cables. No need to increase the 2D Clock speed. The problem returns if any one of the monitors is connected using a Displayport cable (even with a VESA approved cable).

This gives me some hope that this issue can be solved without compromising the low-power performance in 2D mode.

brand new r9 380 4gb getting RMAd today for this very reason. Don't care if hardware or software is at fault - this product is not fit for purpose, it says I can connect my 3 monitors but obviously I can't.

will be buying a piece of non-amd hardware for the first time in 15 years - nvidia 960

Thankfully setting "Alternate DVI Operational Mode" Off and "Reduce DVI Frequency on high-resolution displays" On for the DVI connected monitor(s) seems to still work as a "fix" for the problem until it can be solved properly.

I have a triple 1920x1080 monitor setup with a MSI R9 390X, the side monitors running DVI and the primary monitor running DisplayPort to DVI with active adapter and I am running on windows 10. I have had this issue for the pas 6 months or so.

I simply uninstalled the old drivers and software completely > Rebooted > Installed the new 16.1.1 drivers as Administrator > Rebooted

I did not install Gaming Evolved app and I am running an overclock of 1150 MHz on the core and 1600 MHz on the memory with MSI Afterburner (with PowerPlay). My idle frequencies are 300 MHz on the core and 150 MHz on the memory.

It's been 3 days now, roughly 15 hours of computer use with web browsing, gaming, watching videos and the issue has not come back for me yet.

Technical details :

That issue is a memory issue caused by AMD PowerPlay, the technology that let your GPU core and memory run at lower frequency when not being used. Prior to 16.1.1, my memory frequency would generally stay at idle speed "150 MHz" even when watching videos and browsing the web. It would sometime go above that but never past "600 MHz" and it would drop back to "150 MHz" even while watching videos and other demanding 2D applications. Since 16.1.1, my memory will go directly from "150 MHz" to "1600 MHz" as soon as 2D processing is required.

Same problem here for the last few drivers. Sapphire 290x Tri-X card with 16.6.1, have to switch something like VSR for it to work properly for some time. Getting pretty sick of this and I don't get the feeling that AMD gives a damn.

I have three monitors connected. 1440P through DP, 1080P through HDMI, 720P through DVI.

I am also getting these spazzing horizontal/vertical lines with my MSI twin Frozer r9 290. I have a 850 Watt power supply so that is no a issue.

Again this only comes up if there is more than one monitor active. Although I did notice that if you enable both monitors and then reboot they will function correctly. If you boot up with only one monitor active and then enable the second all hell will break loose again.

Well I should clarify on my setup. My main monitor is running at 2560X1440 (16:9) and my second is 1440x900. If I boot up with my main monitor only connected to display port (I have tried using HDMI and DVI for the main one) I have no issues but as soon as I turn on the second one via windows it starts spazzing out. I tried running both off of DVI only as well and the same issue persists. So its either a physical hardware issue (Almost like the crappy 7970's I had back in the day) Or like many have been saying the low memory clock when sitting on the desktop or web page. The lines get worse the more I move things around such as a window or something. Running a youtube video at 4k also does nothing to help unlike some people have stated.

Is there really no way to change and permanently set the lower memory clock?

I have had this issue on my single monitor setup. I have tried installing the update on my pc, but to no avail. The only version I could find that does not cause the issue on my pc is version 16.11.4. Anything after causes the issue with my sapphire r9 390.

July 2017 and I also have this same problem when using DisplayPort. Crimson ReLive 17.7.1 or w/e the latest driver is at the date of this post.

I've owned the Tri-X 290 for 2 years and only now am experiencing this issue since using DP.

I'm currently using a Dual Link DVI cable to get 120 hz at 1080p with absolutely no issue. HDMI no issue.

I bought a monitor to use 144hz FreeSync and so far it's been a failure. Horizontal lines, flicker, blackscreens. Its even causing my monitor to make loud 'POP' sounds when corrupting.

It is complicated by the fact that changing DP cables can make it better or worse. Interesting to note that the "crap" cable that came with my 144hz monitor works better than the 3ft DisplayPort certified cable by miles.

Of course, downclocking the monitor to 100hz or 60hz helps, but doesn't fix the problem.

Changing clock speeds in memory using AfterBurner or WattMan seem to clear up the issue until launching certain games or enough time passes. Increasing voltage doesn't seem to matter.